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Mercury Fur by Philip Ridley

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Mercury Fur by Philip Ridley MERCURY FUR BY PHILIP RIDLEY DRAMATISTS PLAY SERVICE INC. MERCURY FUR Copyright © 2018, Philip Ridley All Rights Reserved CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that performance of MERCURY FUR is subject to payment of a royalty. It is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, and of all countries covered by the International Copyright Union (including the Dominion of Canada and the rest of the British Commonwealth), and of all countries covered by the Pan-American Copyright Convention, the Universal Copyright Convention, the Berne Convention, and of all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights, including without limitation professional/amateur stage rights, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound recording, all other forms of mechanical, electronic and digital reproduction, transmission and distribution, such as CD, DVD, the Internet, private and file- sharing networks, information storage and retrieval systems, photocopying, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are strictly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed upon the matter of readings, permission for which must be secured from the Author’s agent in writing. The English language stock and amateur stage performance rights in the United States, its territories, possessions and Canada for MERCURY FUR are controlled exclusively by DRAMATISTS PLAY SERVICE, INC., 440 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016. No professional or nonprofessional performance of the Play may be given without obtaining in advance the written permission of DRAMATISTS PLAY SERVICE, INC., and paying the requisite fee. Inquiries concerning all other rights should be addressed to Knight Hall Agency Ltd, 7 Mallow Street, London, EC1Y 8RQ. Attn: Charlotte Knight. SPECIAL NOTE Anyone receiving permission to produce MERCURY FUR is required to give credit to the Author as sole and exclusive Author of the Play on the title page of all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all instances in which the title of the Play appears, including printed or digital materials for advertising, publicizing or otherwise exploiting the Play and/or a production thereof. Please see your production license for font size and typeface requirements. Be advised that there may be additional credits required in all programs and promotional material. Such language will be listed under the “Additional Billing” section of production licenses. It is the licensee’s responsibility to ensure any and all required billing is included in the requisite places, per the terms of the license. SPECIAL NOTE ON SONGS AND RECORDINGS Dramatists Play Service, Inc. neither holds the rights to nor grants permission to use any songs or recordings mentioned in the Play. Permission for performances of copyrighted songs, arrangements or recordings mentioned in this Play is not included in our license agreement. The permission of the copyright owner(s) must be obtained for any such use. For any songs and/or recordings mentioned in the Play, other songs, arrangements, or recordings may be substituted provided permission from the copyright owner(s) of such songs, arrangements or recordings is obtained; or songs, arrangements or recordings in the public domain may be substituted. 2 For Rod Hall I love you so much I could burst into flames. Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man? Zhuang Zhou What a terrible world. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll get out of it alive. W. C. Fields Sometimes brutality is the only antidote to sorrow. David Leavitt MERCURY FUR was originally produced by Paines Plough and the Drum Theatre, Plymouth, on February 10, 2005. The production subsequently transferred to the Menier Chocolate Factory, London, on March 2, 2005. It was directed by John Tiffany, the set and costume designs were by Laura Hopkins, the lighting design was by Natasha Chivers, the original music and sound design was by Nick Powell, and the fight director was Terry King. The cast was as follows: ELLIOT .......................................................................... Ben Whishaw DARREN ..................................................................... Robert Boulter NAZ .................................................................................... Shane Zaza PARTY PIECE (PLYMOUTH) ............................... Navneet Mohan PARTY PIECE (LONDON) .......................... Prem and Previ Gami LOLA .................................................................................. Harry Kent SPINX ............................................................................... Fraser Ayres DUCHESS ................................................................... Sophie Stanton PARTY GUEST ............................................................. Dominic Hall 7 CHARACTERS ELLIOT DARREN NAZ PARTY PIECE LOLA SPINX DUCHESS PARTY GUEST 8 MERCURY FUR A derelict flat in a derelict estate in the East End of London. Layers of peeling wallpaper (many cleaner patches where framed photos once hung), several pieces of old furniture (armchairs, sideboard, shelves, etc.), well-worn carpet and smashed ornaments. Detritus and dust cover everything. As well as the front door there are doors to balcony, bedroom, and bathroom. All this, however, cannot presently be seen as, with the windows covered with plywood, the flat is in darkness. Footsteps outside front door. Slight pause. The front door is forcibly opened with a crowbar and Elliot enters. He is nineteen years old and wearing a zip-up, hooded jacket, jeans, and trainers. He is carrying a large (and very full) sports bag and a lit torch. He walks with a limp. Elliot tries light switch. Nothing happens. He continues looking round flat with torch. DARREN. (Calling, off.) Elliot? Ell? Where the hell are you? Elliot goes to front door. ELLIOT. Where the hell are you? DARREN. (Calling, off.) Dunno. ELLIOT. Can you see the dead dog? DARREN. (Calling, off.) …Yeah. ELLIOT. Step over the dead dog. Turn left. …Here! Elliot waves torch. DARREN. (Calling, off.) Yeah, yeah! Elliot comes back into flat and continues looking round. 9 Darren enters. He is sixteen years old and wearing a zip-up, hooded jacket, jeans, and trainers. He is carrying a torch and two large (and very full) sports bags. A broom lies across the top of one bag. He is struggling and fumbling. Could get lost for-fucking-ever out there. ELLIOT. Shouldn’t dawdle behind, then, should you. DARREN. It’s you! Rushing off all the bloody time! Darren drops torch. Shit! Fuck! Darren picks torch up. Elliot glares his torch at Darren. What? ELLIOT. We’ve got a lot to get ready, Darren. DARREN. I know that, Elliot. Elliot inspects the plywood on a window. He removes it with crowbar. Late afternoon sunlight is revealed. Darren is hovering uneasily. ELLIOT. You bloody helping or what? DARREN. Yeah, but…who are we? ELLIOT. I told you who we fucking were. DARREN. When? ELLIOT. When we parked the fucking car. Slight pause. Do you remember parking the fucking car? DARREN. What d’you think I am? Slight pause. …No. ELLIOT. Darren, listen to me. I’m going to ask you a question. I’m asking this question because you’ve been acting like a kitten after a twirl in the microwave—no, no, let me finish. You’ve been acting like a kitten after a twirl in the microwave all afternoon and this microwaved feline behaviour is eating up time faster than 10 a peckish piranha on a freshly aborted foetus. Do I make myself cunting clear? DARREN. …Yeah. ELLIOT. You ready for the question? DARREN. Yeah. ELLIOT. Have you eaten a butterfly? DARREN. No! ELLIOT. I’ll be more annoyed if you lie to me. DARREN. I have not eaten a butterfly. Slight pause. …Not a whole one. ELLIOT. Jesus! DARREN. One wing! That’s all! ELLIOT. When did you eat it? Eh? As soon as I left the flat this morning, I bet. Soon as my back was fucking turned. DARREN. I waited for the car to drive off first. ELLIOT. Don’t get clever. You promised me, Darren. DARREN. I’m sorry. ELLIOT. No more butterflies behind my back. You swore! DARREN. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Jesus! ELLIOT. What butterfly was it? DARREN. Oh…one of the new ones. ELLIOT. What new one?…Darren! DARREN. I’m trying to remember! ELLIOT. What colour was it, for fuck’s sake? DARREN. Green! No. Gold! With blue flecks. Or was it red? ELLIOT. What did it do to you? DARREN. Famous people…political leaders…killing them. ELLIOT. Assassination. You ate a red with silver stripes. DARREN. Just a wing! A wing! ELLIOT. How were you fucking assassinated? DARREN. I wasn’t. 11 ELLIOT. Who did you assassinate, then? DARREN. No one. ELLIOT. Well, someone was fucking assassinated some-fucking-how! DARREN. I saw someone assassinated. Okay? ELLIOT. Who? DARREN. He…he was sitting in the back of a car. In some city— Don’t tell me, don’t tell me…Dallas! His head went splat. ELLIOT. Kennedy. DARREN. Yeah! ELLIOT. Jesus Christ, Darren, you don’t get no Dallas splat-head Kennedy on a single fucking butterfly wing. DARREN. You’ve never eaten one, how the fuck d’you know? ELLIOT. It’s my job to fucking know! You’d be lucky to get some third- world Muslim cleric machine-gunned in a mosque on a single fucking butterfly wing. It was a whole butterfly, wasn’t it? DARREN. No! ELLIOT. Where’s the other fucking wing, then, eh? Come on! Show me! Starts frisking Darren. Show me, you nigger-Paki-wop-spic-chinkie-Muslim-dago-Christian- cunt! DARREN. Alright, alright. It was a whole butterfly, for fuck’s sake. ELLIOT. Bastard! DARREN. But it was small. ELLIOT. Small? DARREN. A baby. ELLIOT. A baby? You don’t get no baby butterflies, Darren. There are no seven fucking ages of a fucking butterfly. A butterfly is. A butterfly ain’t. That’s its lot. DARREN. They must have a cunting childhood. ELLIOT. It’s called a cater-cunting-pillarhood! DARREN. Alright, alright, I don’t wanna bloddy bolligie lesson. ELLIOT. “Bloddy bolligie”? You can’t even speak properly, you 12 worthless pile of cretinous cum! Jesus! Why are we here, Darren? DARREN.
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